Alfie is a Big Red, the Japanese Snow Monkey Escapee Who Traveled to Bellaire, Ohio

       My mother, Martha Giffen, was a schoolteacher in Bellaire, Ohio in 1987. She taught Chapter Reading in West Bellaire Elementary School, in the community that Alfie chose for his winter home. Her students came to school telling stories about the snow monkey. He chose the high school guidance counselor’s yard as one of his favorite places to sun himself. My parents hosted a Japanese student, Kyoto Katsura from Wheeling Jesuit College around that time, and she created artwork to decorate t-shirts, mugs and hats that the children sold, when Alfie was finally captured, so that they could go visit him at the zoo on a field trip. The teachers all collected newspaper clippings. My mother’s Chapter Reading students wrote, illustrated, and published a small book. She even tried very unsuccessfully to get the school district to change their mascot from an Indian to a Snow Monkey. A few years ago, after retiring, my mother handed me the flattish shipping box full of news stories and student art, and said, “I don’t know what to do with this.” I accepted it. I stored it away for a few years. 

     Last month, I pulled it out, and began attempting to put together stories and a timeline for a blog post. I had not realized how extensive Alfie’s story had been. An entire book could be written about his adventure. The zoo must have mapped his travels not unlike I began putting news articles together. If only I could interview the zoo officials, the journalist, and the capture company! The creative headlines alone might make up several pages. This is what I have put together from those clippings and postings online.

     At the Highland Park Zoo in Pittsburgh, On July 23^rd, 1987, a veterinarian was doctoring a macaque, a Japanese snow monkey, in an exhibit area, and several of the other snow monkeys became agitated. Three of them became so excited, that they climbed the wall and escaped. Two returned shortly afterwards, but the alpha male from the habitat, nicknamed, “Alphie,” for his social position, did not return. He went on a very long, 6-month adventure, before being captured 70 miles away in Bridgeport, Ohio on January 27^th, 1988. Most newspapers spelled his name, "Alfie" during his time away, until the zoo made the announcement upon his return, that he had returned to his machismo social order, so his name was returning to the proper Greek spelling. I have attempted to write this blog story respecting what his name was, when.

     Snow monkeys come from an area of Japan with similar weather to the temperate climates around Pittsburgh, PA and eastern OH. They are adapted to cold weather, and are accustomed to snow. They enjoy bathing in natural hot springs at home in Japan. It is not uncommon for monkeys of all breeds to outsmart their captors and escape for long periods of time. Alfie was very social, though. He endeared (and outsmarted) nearly everyone he met. 

     Pittsburgh Zoo is near the three rivers area of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is sort of like a mini-Manhattan, a long peninsula between two large river tributaries that join to form the third. There are bridges everywhere. The Allegheny River and the Monongahala River meet in downtown Pittsburgh, to form the big Ohio River. The Ohio curves northward from Pittsburgh toward Lake Erie, but then curves over toward the state of Ohio, and travels back south again. The south side of the river, caught in the loop is the northern panhandle of West Virginia, which is only 15 miles across to Pennsylvania by the time the river is as far south as Wheeling. This is the tri-state area where I have lived most of my life; and where Alfie made big news. It was the same year my first child was born. I was away in Columbus, but I heard the stories.

     Alfie never entered West Virginia that we know of. Newspapers reported his escapades more widely the longer he was at large, until he eventually made the national news. The reports followed him along the Allegheny northward, then back south on the western side of the Ohio. He may have never crossed that big river, but instead, followed the loop around, and back south. 

     I have figured out a rudimentary map route of Alfie’s travels based on newspaper articles. From Pittsburgh, to Beaver County, PA, Columbiana County, OH, then Ohio’s Jefferson, Harrison, Guernsey, Belmont and Monroe Counties, journalists worked with local police and county sheriff departments imploring the public to close him into an outbuilding or garage, and to call and report his whereabouts. They published where he was to alert the public, so they might keep track. The sightings and stories poured in. They were entertaining, until the social macaque was entertaining the nation. In each article, residents were asked not to feed Alfie by hand, (they ignored this), not to grab him because he might fight back (he never did), and not to chase him (lots of people chased him). They wanted him to stay in one area. When he was returned, he was given a clean bill of health, but months later, he tested positive for Simian B virus, which can be transferred to humans through bites and scratches, and can be deadly to humans. He was transferred to a wildlife park in Florida soon after.

Alfie’s timeline:

Jul 25-26         Shadyside, Pittsburgh, PA

Jul                    Morningside, Pittsburgh crossed the 62^nd Street Bridge

Jul 30^th             Etna, PA (Stop n Go); Shaler, PA

Jul 31^st             crossed Route 8, spotted at Giant Eagle

Aug 1^st             North Park, PA (in a deer pen)

Aug 3^rd            McCandless, PA

Aug 10^th          Wexford, Bradford Woods, PA

Aug 17^th          Franklin Park, PA

Aug 19^th          Marshall, PA

Aug 24^th          Bell Acres, PA (jumping back and forth from bridge to an apple tree; was seen on another garage roof; swinging from an antennae of yet another home)

(crosses out of Allegheny County)

 Aug 25^th          Economy, Beaver County, PA (seen sitting on a barn roof)

Aug 26^th          Bell Acres, PA

Sep 23rd          Brighton Township, PA (crossed the football field, ate from a bird feeder)

Sep 30th          Industry, Beaver, PA (chased by police, residents and two dogs)

Oct 9^th             Ohio Rt 213 and Austin Lake, OH

Oct 11^th           State Park Rd, Richmond, OH (eating apples from a tree)

Oct 12^th           Jefferson County, OH Sheriff’s Department reports calls for past 2 weeks

Oct 14^th           Hopedale, OH

Oct 16^th           Cadiz (East Market near Harrison Community Hospital in am; Park Ave near Harrison County Fairgrounds in pm)

Oct 17th          Deer Ridge near Cadiz, Harrison County, OH

Oct 20^th           Warren St., Cadiz, OH

Oct 21^st           Smyrna, OH (crossed Ohio 800 between Smyrna and Freeport)

Oct 22^nd           Chapel Hill Rd west of Rt 250 between Cadiz and Tappan Lake

Oct 24^th           between Belmont & Morristown, OH

Oct 25^th           Bethesda, OH (Glenwood Apartments, was seen crossing a field)

Oct 27^th           Gorey Mill Rd of Rt 26, south of Bethesda, OH

Nov 3^rd            Woodsfield, OH (Moose Ridge Rd, sitting on a fence pole)

Nov 5^th                        OH Rt 26, Monroe County (sunning on a roof of a building; was chased by vet and Monroe County Sheriff’s Department and dogs, treed; his foot was grabbed, but he got loose)

Nov 14^th          Barnesville, OH (Doudna’s Orchard eating apples in trees, woman called Belmont County Sheriff’s Department wanting it off the property)

Nov 15^th          Speidel, OH (between Barnesville and Bethesda, on farm of Barnesville Recreation Director)

Nov 17^th          Jacobsburg, OH

Nov 20^th          Neffs and Bellaire, OH (chased off a trash pile in Neffs; Rock Hollow Rd, broke a bird feeder and ate birdseed, 2 sightings on Rt 214)

Nov 23^rd          Bellaire, OH (dog chased up a tree on High St., swung from tree to tree, later sighted in BelHaven)

Nov 26^th          Bellaire chase: Police report he was at Cervelli Motors, was chased by several Police Dept officers into Phillips Stamping building, escaped by climbing on beams and getting out through garage; residents and children chased him back toward Cervelli Motors and RR tracks, and one resident chased him up a hill, where Alfie played stop and catch up, and go, until the resident gave up. Screamed in the woods outside of town all night.

Nov 29^th          Avondale, Shadyside, OH

Dec 3^rd             Pinch Run, between Bellaire and Shadyside, OH, lays low in woods outside of town

but visited one residence regularly here since Nov 20^th for birdseed and bananas

Dec 5^th             Belmont County 214, Mt Calvary Cemetery

Dec 11^th           Bellaire, OH, Pinch Run, newspaper reporter chases him into the woods trying to get a picture; he has been following Bellaire’s Alfie stories closely

Dec 14^th           Bellaire, OH resident photographs Alfie eating a banana

Dec 22^nd          Shadyside resident trees with his dogs, and drugs Alfie with both dart gun and fruit, drugs provided by a veterinarian; was in tree for 12 hours; drugs don’t work and too many people hear commotion and show up to watch; attempt abandoned. He climbs down and gets away again

Jan 8^th              West Bellaire, romping on rocks above big curve in road; videotaped by a resident pulling down a bird feeder and eating the birdseed

Jan 9^th              Zoo hires Capture Company; they set up a trap at guidance counselor’s home that Alfie frequents; has resident tree Alfie so he can shoot him with a dart gun but can't get a good shot; Alfie climbs back down tree and leaves

Jan 12^th            West Bellaire, sighted regularly

Jan 16^th            Capture company brings a new trap with an electronic door; Shadyside dog trainer agrees to move trap around to sighting areas with his son’s assistance

Jan 18^th            Bellaire, seen on 26^th St, then near Bellaire Clinic on Washington St, then Monroe St, then 41^st St; then on the north end of town. Police found him on 48^th St running around.

Jan 21^st            West Bellaire, establishes trust from guidance counselor, suns in his yard, takes fruit and chocolate from his hand on regular basis; resident cannot keep up with chocolate habit; gives him caramel for amusement and Alfie can't get it out of his teeth; Alfie puts nose on neighbor’s door waiting for her to get food for him

Jan 21^st            Bridgeport, OH, Jacquette St, sat on resident’s porch bannister, and peeped in window while she got him food; ate birdseed off the ground

Jan 25^th            West Wheeling, OH, spotted by pastor of Riverview Bible Church; spotted in Boydsville

Jan 26^th            Bridgeport, OH, Kennon St., checks over trap with birdseed and fruit inside

Jan 27^th            Bridgeport, OH 12:15 Bill Youst pushed the button to close the electronic cage on Kennon Ave with Alfie inside.

     After Alfie’s capture, Bellaire Police Chief, Roger Woods, had arranged to have him brought to the municipal building in Bellaire, OH while waiting for zoo officials to come retrieve him, so that residents could say goodbye. Over 100 people came to see Alfie off, including bank presidents, city officials and business people. He was about 35 lbs, 19 lbs heavier than when he had escaped. He had no cuts, but he did have some fleas. News crews arrived, and there was an impromptu arrangement for him to return to the zoo via a news helicopter instead of the van that was on its way, but his cage would not fit. The crowd was moved to the football stadium in view of Route 7. Traffic along the 4-lane highway backed up as people stopped to watch the commotion. Some people yelled to set him free. Some people cried. Some people became angry because they could not get pictures. Alfie left Bellaire, Ohio at about twenty-to-six that Wednesday Evening.

      Back at the zoo, he was put into isolation for 30 days, and was given medical tests for diseases and parasites. The zoo decided to build a new habitat just for Alfie in the children’s section. They sold shares of “Monkey Business” to fund the habitat, which opened that spring. West Bellaire School, The Times Leader newspaper, and the Pittsburgh Zoo all sold Alfie memorabilia. West Bellaire’s money went to charter buses for a field trip to the zoo to visit Alfie that spring. The newspaper’s money went to the local Belmont County Animal Rescue League. The zoo’s money went to a new, and a more secure habitat for the Japanese snow monkey who made history. Several female companions joined him there. Wheeling and Oglebay’s Good Zoo near Wheeling, WV made offers to give Alfie a home. They even offered to buy another Japanese snow monkey to replace him, but the zoo stated that they had signed a contract with Alfie.

     Kyoto Katsura, a design artist from Japan, created the artwork for West Bellaire’s memorabilia, stating, “Alfie is a Big Red” in both Japanese and English. The school had difficulty keeping up with the orders. Vivid Graphics in St. Clairsville filled them as they came in.

     My mother privately did not want Alfie to be a “Big Red.” She wanted the school district to change their mascot from a Native American, an icon depicting Native Americans as savages and a reminder of the bloody wars fought in this valley, to the Snow Monkey who found refuge and company here. She is a diplomat though, and a leader. Our village is enmeshed with an identity they cannot part with; and so she embraced that as a compromise. So many people connected with this macaque in his travels of freedom, and cheered him on. We are Alphie.

Migrant Deaths, Where is The News?

This is my husband's tractor. It has a cutter bar for hay attached to the back. It has been raining for most of the past few weeks, so the tractor sits idle, and the hay grows.

We are so lucky to have the lives we do, to have roots, to have established families. Sometimes I feel trapped by that. 

I have not written for six months, because I arranged to have my hot spot home internet turned off, and switched phone companies from Verizon to Credo. Making blog posts from a tablet is difficult. Home internet is now back on, and this is where things are.

The past two weeks have brought quite a lot of news and activity. Most notably in my mind and world, there were shootings in Mexico of two different groups of immigrants, amounting to around 210 people. Only about 60 escaped for sure. Joel Smith, whom I have mentioned in previous posts during my trip to the border in November of 2013 posted that he had heard about the shootings when he was in Sasabe, Mexico. He goes to Sasabe when he fills the water stations in the desert on the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, the run I went on when I was there. Joel was the first to post an article on the shootings. There have only been three articles, one in Spanish, and no other news: 

El Daily Post
telesur
El Diario

I remembered that he had posted that morning before leaving. Arizona is three hours behind Ohio. I leave for work around 8:30 am, and he was online before I left. That was 5:30 their time. 

Last week, I flew to Texas for training for my job. In April, I left my nursing career, and began a position as a medical copy editor. More specifically, I annotate advertisements that need to comply with FDA requirements for health care products. This requires reading numerous research papers, and matching pieces of them to advertisement claims. 

In between locations, and in between work days, I read a little in two books on my Kindle. They were "The Postmistress," by Sarah Blake, and "Enrique's Journey," by Sonia Nazario. Upon arriving home, I was overly sensitive to any racism against the Hispanic community. Okay, I was oversensitive to any racism at all. 

This morning, a fellow Friend (Quaker) posted a long journalism story on two wetsuitmen found on the coasts of Norway, and of the Netherlands. The investigation into the deaths led back to "The Jungle" refugee camp in Calais across the Dover Strait from Great Britain. Combine that with an online acquaintance from a breastfeeding forum 9 years ago who lives in Australia, posting about the refugees from Indonesia and Manus Island. Add in the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. The global migration problem becomes much more ominous when one combines all of these places. 1 in 122 people in the world today lives with no country. Private prisons have become a for-profit industry, and the military industrial complex profits have probably never been better. 

In two weeks, I will travel to Frederick, Maryland to give a slideshow on the trip the border two Novembers ago. I hope to stop off at Harper's Ferry, where distant cousins, Edwin and Barclay Coppock participated in John Brown's Raid before the Civil War. There were protests in Frederick County two months ago, after the death of Freddie Gray. This was around the time I began my new job. Whether people are African American, Muslim or Hispanic, police and border patrol brutality against the "other" happens increasingly with impunity. It is justified by much of the public, and it should not be. A couple of days ago, a young man shot and killed 9 people in a church service in South Carolina. A large portion of the news media is attempting to state that this was not racially motivated. 

Meanwhile, our local school district continues on with the mascot of a "Big Red" Indian in full regalia, whilst complaining that the local school levy will not pass after 6 times on the ballot. I have been told it would be too expensive to change the mascot, but no attempt has been made to phase out the emblem to ease such a change down the road. Entitlement and selfishness are the primary accusations against the public for not passing the levy. Most in the local community are unable to make any connection between entitlement, privilege, and the use of a Native American symbol to embody their team and local identity. Even as they pretend to be "Indians," many decry the invasion of "illegal immigrants," not understanding that it is they who are illegal; or that the ancestors of this area committed genetic cleansing against the mascot they pretend to be.

I do not think we can afford any sort of racism right now. None. We cannot afford to criminalize refugee status of the country-less. If we continue down such a path, what will our world look like in 5, 10, and 20 years from now? The population of the world is growing. Borders are breaking at the seams of the "haves," and the "have nots" are pouring in. All of the evidence base on what works is being tossed out with the garbage, and profit is the primary motivation for how we address these issues. More prisons, more walls, more drones, more tanks, more bombs. It is not difficult, given these scenarios, to understand what the world might be like in the future, and it is not pretty. It is high time to become humane. 

Day one. Winter Solstice 2014. The day began cloudy, and is still cloudy. At 3:30pm, it is about 40 degrees F. Happy solstice, everyone! It is a good day to begin a new project!
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Prayer Books, Meditations, and Devotionals

June Sunset in Ohio

I've kept them all over the years, even the ones I never thought I'd read. Prayer and meditation books of all kinds, from pagan, to New Age, to Christian. Yesterday someone posted on Facebook that this month was Ramadan. I get other-than-Christian religious holidays confused, especially Jewish and Muslim ones. I grew up a Christian, after all, and although I have tried to educate myself over time, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan are interchangeable enough that I still have to look them up to remember what they are about.

Fasting is a bad idea for a nurse who works 12-hour shifts, especially night shifts during middle age of a woman. The body is going through all sorts of subtle metabolic and hormonal changes in which the lack of any certain kind of food can unexpectedly throw one of them into overdrive. I recently found this out, profoundly, the hard way. But there is a quiet pull to honor a holiday that is not mine, somehow. If I am going to sacrifice something, or even to observe something, I like doing it for short periods of times. Lent is about six weeks long. Ramadan is a month long. I haven't been making it to Quaker meeting often lately. For personal reasons, some of my usual venues for personal fulfillment have some blocks in the road. What to do, what to do. It occurred to me that I might try a small devotion, or meditation each day of Ramadan. 

Most, if not all of them, are on my bookshelf. My daughter put them there when she unpacked the boxes after we moved here, and my nieces rearranged them when they helped me clean. I found the small prayer and meditation booklets of like size in a row together. The most appealing is "Celtic Prayers," by Alexander Carmichael, spiritually, personally, and aesthetically. I have long forgotten who gave this one to me, or whether I bought it myself. I don't know who the author is. I Googled him, and he became even more appealing - a Celtic folklorist and scholar. I'll begin with that one. 

In the same little pile is "Wings of Prayer, Baha'i Prayers for Women," "A Selection of Baha'i Prayers, Holy Writings," and "The Hidden Words, selected writings of Bah'u'llah," given to me by the sister of a former significant other. There is "A Little Journal of Devotions out of Quaker Worship, An experiment with 104 entries across two thousand miles," by Francis D Hole and Ellie Shacter, and "Expectant Listening, Finding God's Thread of Guidance," by Michael Wajda. I haven't looked these people up yet, but the 104 entries sounds interesting. Then there is "Bible Puzzles, Quizzes and Games," by Helen Pettigrew, that I've been carrying around without actually using since I was a teenager. There are a lot more, but these are the ones that jumped out at me today. 

The problem with me and a meditation time is that my schedule is so upended, and energy levels so unpredictable, that personal commitments, especially those geared for self-support and self-healing, generally work for only a few days. It is pretty predictable, however, that I will get on Facebook every day, since that has become my primary means of communication and self-expression. So why not type out an entry every day in a post? Then I will actually read it. I am going to give it a try.

Where the Butterflies Lay Their Eggs: A story of Immigration, Scotland, Germany, Quakers, and Native Americans

The view of the cluster of residences of my husband's family, past some milkweed in the field.

This is where I live now. It is probably where I will live until I'm 80. Maybe until I die. My home is dead center, just over the hill from the trees. At first glance, it looks like a ridge in eastern Belmont County, but it is so much more. 

It is the site overlooking an ancient Indian settlement. It is the top of a ravine called Whiskey Run, where moonshiners took barrels down to the river for delivery. It is the hay meadow. It is the Indian path to spy on the settlers on Wheeling Island. It is a Revolutionary War land grant in the 7 Ranges. It is a pre-Civil War general's dream farm. It is near where my husband ran for help as his grandfather died of a heart attack. It is near where my husband's tractor rolled over on him and permanently deformed his clavicle. It is where coyotes chew on toy dolls they stole from someone's barn or yard. It is where the turkeys and deer feed. It is where my husband has found numerous flint and stone tools. It is a spiritual Native American ground. I am likely the very first Quaker to live here. I often feel somewhat misplaced. I also feel honored; abandoned; discontent, and some sort of content all at the same time.

My husband, Bruce, has worked this farm for most of his life, from childhood, minus about 20 years. During the time away, he was a hippie, traveling with friends, hitchhiking, helping his brother round up and brand cows in Colorado, walking barefoot in California, being a vegetarian. For most of his life, he was here, in Ohio, two high ridges in from the Ohio River; two high ridges over from Wheeling, WV.

Wheeling Island from Kirkwood Heights before 9/11, taken by me.

If one drives along this ridge until it descends into the river valley, one eventually comes to this view, looking up the river, at Wheeling Island, Martins Ferry on this side, and Wheeling, WV on the other. Bridgeport and National Road (Route 40, where it crosses the Island) is directly below. I grew up with panoramic scenes like this each morning, going to school in Bellaire, which is further south from this view. In the autumn, the river is shrouded with fog in the mornings, and the hilltops look like a wonderland above marshmallows. 

The little clip of the flat to the right is near where the Wheeling Slave Auction Block sat. The hilltop to the right of the river is likely near the vicinity of Fort Henry, the first settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains. The other side of the that hilltop is the steep cliff where McCulloch's horse took a great leap down into the Wheeling Creek valley when he had arrived to Fort Henry, and was fleeing from the Indians. He and his horse survived the leap; one of the great Ohio Valley legends. This was Lewis Wetzel's favorite stomping grounds.

I travel down this hill to Riesbecks to go grocery shopping, or when I want to go up the river to the Pittsburgh airport, or to Wheeling. 

The Allegheny's are the eastern "Great Divide," where the water runs into the Mississipi and to the Gulf of Mexico, instead of into the Atlantic Ocean. The lip you see here along the West Virginia side of the Ohio River is the trail where settlers traveled south from Pittsburgh before the Revolutionary War. Now it is the path of WV Route 2. Ohio's lip houses OH Route 7.

This picture is the setting for several books: Zane Grey's trilogy, "The Spirit of the Border," "Betty Zane," and "The Last Trail;" Allan W. Eckert's "That Dark and Bloody River;" Alan Fitzpatrick's "Wilderness War on the Ohio," John S. Cochran's "Bonnie Belmont," and Susan G. Hall's "Appalachian Ohio and the Civil War, 1862-1863." All of these books are in my library, and I've read all but the last cover-to-cover. Hall's book details the religious sects that settled this area. I have an early American family tree consisting of mostly pre-Revolutionary War families; the Quakers on my mother's side, and the Presbyterian Scots-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch German Lutherans on my father's side. I am all of this. So I belong here, whether or not I feel like I belong. I embrace it all, in its entirety - its violence; its inhumanity; its refuge for those who refused to participate in the inhumanity; what it means for the past, the present; and the future. And I don't belong. I am not a Native American; yet I live where they made their tools probably for a thousand or more years before my people arrived. 

How incredibly relevant that the seeds pictured above will grow plants that feed a butterfly species, pictured below, that will likely migrate to Mexico. 

Monarch Butterfly on Scottish Thistle, with a Praying Mantis

 My favorite song about the area, about freedom, and the dedication to insuring human rights for all people:

"Ohio" by Patty Griffin

Working Night Shift, Lip Reading, Spanish, and Crackers

I have worked night shift before, but never in this capacity. The past two years have been a career roller coaster ride. I finished my Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) last June of 2013, and the roller coaster only accelerated.  I've been a registered nurse (RN) since completing an Associate's Degree program (ADN) in 1997. I thought the BSN might improve my career. At least, it was supposed to insure employment stability.

Some obscure time soon many RN's in the U.S. will have to have a BSN to keep the jobs they already have. The American Nurses Association (ANA) would like to phase out all but four year training programs. The literature supporting this move says there are better patient outcomes for people cared for by BSN graduates. All registered nurses (RNs) take the same board exam whether they finished a two year (ADN), three year (Diploma), or four year (BSN) program. Amazingly some BSN nurses still think they take a different test. The NCLEX is the NCLEX no matter what program completed to qualify to sit for it. 

To be fair, some of the career issues are self-induced. That is for another post. For now, I am here, where I ended up, and have hopefully exited the ride. Not sure I'm up for another.

On December 31st, I began my current position, bringing in the new year. I hope to stay here for a long time. I am a direct care nurse on a vent unit in a sub-acute care facility. I like it here. I am still sort of catching my breath. I am working straight night shift, and my schedule rotates regularly every two weeks, alternating with the other primary night shift nurse working on the same unit. This covers 6 shifts per week. Another nurse works the 7th night. Unless one of us needs a certain night off, the schedule does not change; nor does my assignment.

In the past two years I have been a cardiac nurse, have pulled femoral artery sheaths, the tube they put in your groin during a heart cath, (and trained others to do so), been a nurse supervisor in a nursing home, and have done MDS's (minimum data sets, or assessments of care provided in nursing homes for insurance billing) while writing a power point on Ohio's "Nursing Home Bill." I have worked as a travel nurse in a city hospital where I helped care for a large Somolian population, as well as numerous other nationalities and sub-nationalities I had never heard of. I also worked alongside 1st generation Somolian-Americans. I have floated to neuro, orthopedic, ICU, and step-down units. I have used five electronic medical record systems, Veriscan bar coding, finger print computer sign on pads, unit wireless telephones, overhead paging, and the Vocera wearable intercom system. I've had several parking passes, and have learned and formed numerous passcodes. I have used 4 different kinds of IV pumps. I have taken CPR and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) from profoundly different teachers through different instruction models, including from a bored instructor who skipped most of the class material, gave answers to the CPR test and gave out cards, as well as from an award-winning ACLS instructor from a prominent medical system. What a contrast!

What is not new: 

being a nurse
drawing blood from central lines
venipunctures
IV pumps 
Advanced Cardiac Life Support
making pills more palatable for people who are sick of taking them
putting in Foley catheters
people coming down off of a high becoming psychotic
people wanting more pain medication than they need/an amount that would be lethal to me
trying to keep disoriented or sedated people from falling and hurting themselves
old women in a lot of pain refusing tylenol

What is a blast from the past: 


signing initials in a book for every pill I administer
identifying confused patients by asking coworkers who they are
clocking in and out without a fingerprint
some of my coworkers (one used the same sitter during nursing school 15 years ago)
keeping track of refrigerator temperatures

What is new:

trouble-shooting ventilator problems
learning lip-reading
a regular, routine work schedule
feeling tired all of the time on my days off (more tired than before)
being awake all night on my days off
the people who are online when I'm awake
using a walkie-talkie in a health care setting

I browsed the internet last month, looking for tips on adjusting to a changing circadian rhythm, and on existing on a different schedule than most of the rest of the world. I found a few helpful websites. Mostly I found articles about weight gain and long-term health issues for those who work nights.

What I miss:  

discussing monitor strips and cardiac medications with doctors
acing cardiac monitor tests 
alone time in hotel rooms
fixing dinner for/shopping with hosts
finding interesting shops in the city, like neat ethnic markets, and The Raisin Rack
transient, eclectic friendships with fascinating people
a mixed culture
cars pounding with rap music at traffic lights

What I like: 

being at home, with my family
participating in my daughter's homeschooling
working with people who know me and still like me
a regular, routine work schedule
getting to know patients for longer than a few days
learning lip reading

A word about lip-reading. It is far more useful than I ever anticipated; and it is an art. I am teaching myself Spanish right now also, after visiting the U.S. Mexico border last fall. Lip-reading is every bit as much of a foreign language as Spanish or American Sign Language, and ever more useful for a nurse than many skills I have learned. When that dying patient was mouthing words that I wished I had understood; if only I had known this then. Most long-term ventilator patients are completely lucid. They can take the time to write what they want to say, if they are able. Some only retain some facial movement. On night shift, they want to talk. And they do not want to write it all down. All these years, I have learned to look away when listening, to focus on what someone was saying. This job has forced me to look AT people. More specifically, it has forced me to look at their mouth, and their jaw movements, and to focus on what each part was doing. Are the teeth coming together to form an "s," or is the tongue behind them to form a "th?" Does the jaw drop for the "ah" sound, or is it only half dropped for the "eh" sound? 

Spanish is helping me learn to communicate with people of another ethnicity. Lip reading is helping me learn to communicate with my own family members; even my pets, as I "hear" an array of communication I was never able to hear before.

 One thing about tiredness is that habits limit what you do with your time. We don't get cable TV, so that is out. I've grown weary of Facebook. When everyone is asleep, and you don't feel like cleaning, what do you do? I have started a family recipe book that is nearly finished. I have started watching the Netflix videos I order, but on my computer. The internet here is limited, so I get them in the mail. I work more in my office on papers that have piled up. I have done a little sewing. I do Spanish exercises. I read news articles, and blog. But the one thing I don't mind doing at night, when I'm feeling tired, is cooking. Last night, I made three kinds of crackers. 

I have not made crackers for years. The first batch did not call for enough water, and ended up being mostly crumbles. The second batch turned out okay. The third batch was best. A box of Wheat Thins costs between $3 and $4. The ingredients for a cookie sheet full of crackers, about the same quantity, costs a fraction of that. What's more, you can put whatever you want in them. I have a lot of old spices in my cupboard that need used up. I have 3 containers of caraway seed. I have a 50 lb sack of rye flour in the freezer that I thought at one time I might make sourdough bread with. It turns out the rye with caraway crackers tasted the best. Where have I been all these years?

There is an old Quaker belief, that when something is from God, it will be affirmed somehow. For instance, when someone speaks in meeting, and you feel it is a message for you, but you aren't sure, something will happen to let you know that it is, for sure. Someone else will speak also, and what they say will affirm what the first person said in a way that is only relevant to you. Or someone will come to you after meeting and say something that affirms it. Or an event will tell you so. Such a thing happened to me this past week. After so many changes, I wonder if there will be another change, or whether this is where I am supposed to be. This past week I received a summons for jury duty, for the summer months. I was chosen for a jury years ago. I was working in the same facility. Of all the incredibly odd things to happen.


 

About Casa Grande and CCA

It has been nearly two months since my trip to the southwest. I think about it often. A few significant experiences remain to be written about. One was the shortcut past Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. That was an emotional day.

I left Tucson for the last time the Saturday morning, the very next day after my trip to Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. I can’t quite describe my feelings of grief as I descended the back wooden staircase outside, from the upper story of the large house, to the small gravel lot behind Pima Friends Meeting in Tucson. I opened the trunk of the white Honda Sonata rental car and filled it, realizing I had no idea when I would ever be back. The feeling escalated into a mild exasperation when I wasn't able to find someone to pay for the room. People were having meetings downstairs all morning. I did not feel I could interrupt.

Committee work in Friends meetings is often conducted on Saturdays, and those sorts of gatherings are sometimes planned around larger events, such as a quarterly business session. They can last a long time, but usually break for lunch. I walked into the downstairs back door very quietly. Since my mother is a Quaker minister, I am experienced at getting attention when needed without being too disruptive. I hoped someone would leave the meeting room to use the bathroom or have a drink, or get something from their car. Then I could ask who to pay. They didn’t. I sat on the side porch, logged into my bank account, and scheduled a payment to be mailed on the next business day. They could see me through the window. Nobody came out. I felt unjustifiably neglected, but I get like that sometimes. I was told later by email that people “usually put it in the drop box by the front door.” I wondered if people who visited my home meeting ran into such frustrating, somewhat insignificant dilemmas.

When I got into the car, as I turned on the ignition, the tears came. I just cried for a little while. I took one last look at the meetinghouse, and pulled out of the lot. I drove away from the park where Pablo had given me the CD he made. I drove up Interstate 10. I thought of the cross I had carried just a week ago, and wondered where along Interstate 10 the young man whose cross I had carried had been found. I wondered if someone might be there along the road now, just out of sight. After some miles, I felt a strong urge that I sometimes have, for no reason, to take the next exit, and just drive. It was a beautiful, quiet, November Saturday morning in the desert, without a lot of traffic.

The road I pulled off onto was Route 87. I did not want to end up in the middle of nowhere, so I pulled out the map of Arizona I had saved on a previous trip and packed in my computer bag. (No GPS for this 1980’s pizza and buffalo wings delivery girl). The road went to Phoenix. Part-way-there was a notorious brown spot jumping out at me – a National Monument. Yes!

I can’t entirely describe these feelings I have. They are related to the “Quaker knowing,” intuitive-like knowledge I’ve written about before, and sometimes stronger. There is no audible voice, but the words are clear in my mind: “Go this way.” I made note of the approximate distance, and of the part of Mesa I would be arriving into. I recognized the names of some of the streets from driving around my first days in Phoenix. I tucked the map away and drove on.

There were miles upon miles of ripe cotton. I stopped and took a picture. A little further on, off to the left, a red Farmall tractor was kicking up dust, pulling a small harvester. My husband, Bruce, loves Farmalls, and my father did too. I wanted to stop again, but thought I might never make it back to Phoenix if I kept stopping to take photos. My eyes scanned fields, wondering if an immigrant might be sleeping under a large tree, or if they might hide in the local barns. And then I saw it, and a shock went through my whole being.

Picture at this news story link:

http://archive.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2008/Sep-03-Wed-2008/news/23608276.html

It was the prison. I just had not expected it. It was not on my map. After the week's experiences, there it was, rising out of my pastoral road trip. Immaculate, enormous, and not a soul in sight. The letters, CCA, were on the front of the building. I considered pulling over to take a picture, but the thought of security watching me photograph them through cameras turned my stomach. I mean, I felt ill. If I pulled over, it would more likely be to vomit, I realized, because the physical reaction was that strong. I was shaking, and holding my steering wheel tightly by the time I passed it all. I did stop in the next town; Elroy maybe, and bought a cup of coffee and a donut. My hands were still shaking as I took the money out of my worn, leather, one-pocket zip wallet at the gas station. I had been carrying the old thing, full with my passport card, license, credit and debit cards, and change in a SPIbelt from some old half marathon a few years ago. A SPIbelt is an elastic belt, convenient for marathoners, with zip-pockets, and can be worn over or under clothing. I had just worn it under my clothes into Mexico twice. The young cashier was friendly. Everyone in town seemed friendly, and I wondered how many of them worked at the prison.The shaking subsided.

Finally, I got to Casa Grande. Admission was surprisingly free, because of it being Veterans Day weekend. But I had to take my coffee back out to the car. They did not permit food or drinks. I had my last 5K T-shirt on, and it flouted Wheeling, WV's Ogden Classic. A woman passing me started talking in a very fake “hillbilly” dialect to the people with her, accentuating the bigoted tone of this entire experience. I felt sad and disgusted with the ignorance, and annoyed that some people still found humor in that.

I browsed the museum, then sat and watched the movie prior to the next tour. I took pictures of the display of kinds of building structures in the museum for Bruce, because he likes to construct from raw materials. I could not shake the image of the prison during the entire movie; and as I sat there in the dark, listening to the story of the ancestors of the people who lived here, a quiet, simmering rage filled me. I wondered how many of the descendents of those who lived here were down the road, incarcerated, for simply crossing a political line, drawn by who? And for what? I looked around me, taking note that there was only one tan-skinned family in the room. By the time the movie was over, I was fighting tears, so enraged; wondering what everyone else visiting was here to see; what would they take away? Then we went outside. 

The square holes were for the solstices and equinoxes.

We walked around the structure. To know that this was once one of the largest settlements of native Americans, and their central community structure, left a deep impression on me. How dare we! How dare white people move to this area freely, live here a year, and feel entitled to this place enough to build a prison and incarcerate people whose ancestors lived here thousands of years ago! How dare we! To think that some of the largest prisons for immigrants in the U.S. are right at the very heart of the ancestral grounds of many of the people we put in them is hienous. This is NOT a “free country,” for anyone except those who exploit.

We go vacationing, and look at hieroglyphs, and we don’t understand what they mean, on any level whatsoever.

I keep thinking back to Jan de Hartog’s story about Friends during WWII, in his book, “The Lamb’s War.” It is fiction, but the story that comes to mind most is about the witnessing of Nazi’s killing Jews indiscriminately, and of making their loved ones watch and lose control, for sport. I’ve thought of that often through the years. In the same train of thought, I think of Shane Bauer, imprisoned in Iran, falsely accused of spying while hiking in the mountains near Iran. I think of what he experienced, and his looking into the U.S. prison system when he got home, and writing about it.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confinement-shane-bauer

The family and friends of those imprisoned in Iran began a fast for their release. This fast inspired one of the first immigrant rights groups I joined, the Facebook group, Starving for Justice, that led to my taking this trip. I fasted for Shane and his friends, but also with this group, for the immigrants imprisoned in the U.S.. Each week we fasted one day per week, and kept going with it for months. So many people are willing to support people like Shane, an American citizen imprisoned unjustly in a Middle Eastern country, but are unwilling to see or believe the atrocities and injustices being committed here, within our own borders, by us.

Casa Grande left its mark on my soul.

I walked back to my car, indefinably outraged, and drove along the two-lane highway, all the way back to Mesa. I found my way to my son’s home. He and his girlfriend were comfy on their couch, watching TED talks on the television, and working on their laptops. I brought in my luggage, then sat on the easy chair next to them, and turned on my laptop also. An oriental woman on the television was talking about a woman with a ripped vagina from childbirth causing a fistula to her urethra. The uncontrollable leakage and stench inspired her community to leave her to be killed by dogs. This happened somewhere in Asia. She was able fight the dogs off, then crawl to a neighboring town where her fistula was ultimately repaired. And then she made a difference by starting a fund for women in remote places, who had such fistulas caused by childbirth to be repaired. What an odd story for such a day, but a relevant one.

My life is very full and busy. I live over a thousand miles from the border. I came home to my own financial and personal instabilities to deal with; to friends and family talking about their own winter vacations; and to a profound disillusionment with those around me. I came home to people complaining about their employer because they couldn't get the schedules they wanted; to foreigners seeking health care in a city hospital; to drug users losing control while trying to get help. But what was stuck in my vision was images of desperate, despondent, hard-working farmers with blistered feet, who would do anything in the world to be able to have those issues. I am also disillusioned with myself. If someone put me in prison today, I’m positive they could “break” me in a very short period of time, but what would they prove, other than their own inhumanity? What do we prove by putting desperate people in prison for crossing a border? Who are we helping? It is not ourselves, and it is not them. We know people can be broken. I have been thinking a lot since my trip about what it is I am going to do to fix what is happening to so many people.